Colin Vallon

After studying classical music for two years Colin Vallon (born November 17 1980 in Lausanne) took classes with jazz pianist Marc Ueter at the age of fourteen. He enrolled at the Swiss Jazz School when he was 18 and studied with Silvano Bazan, William Evans, Manuel Bärtsch and Bert Joris.

In 1999, he founds the Colin Vallon trio which has played regularly ever since, in Switzerland and abroad; in 2004 it released his debut-album “Les Ombres“. In January 2005, the trio opens the Swiss Diagonales Festival with New York guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. “Ailleurs”, the second album of the Colin Vallon trio, was published in 2007 by the prestigious avant-garde Label HatHut Records.

Colin Vallon won the Fridl-Wald Foundation Prize, 1st Prize in the Competition Nescafé Let’s Jazz Together, and 3rd Prize in the Montreux International Jazz Piano Solo Competition. In 2004 Pro Helvetia commissioned a composition by him and he founded a new quintet, “Colin Vallon cinq” with french trumpet player Erik Truffaz. In 2008 he won the Nico Kaufmann Foudation prize and in 2009 the SUISA foundation prize. 2009 the Colin Vallon trio won the Pro Helvetia high priority jazz promotion.

Since 2009 he is teaching at the Bern University of the Arts.

He has performed at several international Jazz Festivals: Montreux, Cully, Schaffhouse, Willisau, Basel, Gaume, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Saalfelden, Cape Town und Dubaï... Tours in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia, Tunisia, and South Africa.

He played with: Nils Wogram, Adrian Mears, John Schröder, Steffen Schorn, Tyshawn Sorey, Dejan Terzic, Josh Roseman, Andy Scherrer, Dré Pallemaerts, ...

Recordings with Adrian Mears, Nils Wogram, Dejan Terzic, John Schröder, Norbert Pfammatter, Tyshawn Sorrey, Andy Scherrer, Tom Harrell, Kenny Wheeler…